Mark Lawrence: “Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene”
UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, 27 April 2015
Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene
Mark G. Lawrence
Scientific Director, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Potsdam, Germany
For the UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, New York, 27 April 2015
Webcast available at: http://harmonywithnatureun.org/index.php?page=view&type=12&nr=45
Mr. President, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I would like to thank you for this opportunity to address you as part of this fifth Dialogue on
Harmony with Nature, and to express my gratitude to the Plurinational State of Bolivia and its
friends and supporters. You have brought the topic of Harmony with Nature into the forefront,
in a world where much of our thoughts and interactions are focused on mankind and machines.
But perhaps that typical anthropocentric focus should not be surprising – after all, we are living
in the Anthropocene.
THE ANTHROPOCENE
Humans have an influence on the environment that is global in scale, and which will be evident
on geological timescales. Although there is an ongoing scientific debate over whether to really,
formally call our current Epoch the Anthropocene, and when to put the starting date, we can
nevertheless think of many examples of our environmental impacts on a global and long-term
scale, such as climate change, ocean acidification, continental-scale deforestation, and sediment
layers of minerals and plastics. And we know from assessment reports like those by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about the many hardships that the various
forms of global environmental degradation will cause, or are already causing.
We are in the midst of the Great Acceleration, the rapid increase since the 1950s in many
indicators of the Anthropocene, such as greenhouse gas concentrations, deforestation and
species extinctions, and the world’s population is still growing, approaching or perhaps even
exceeding 10 billion in the coming decades. And somewhere around that time, we could end up
making a qualitative shift, from the Anthropocene as we know it, to a new form that I’ve started
calling the “Anthropocene 2.0”.
What would be so different in an Anthropocene 2.0 compared to the current Anthropocene?
Consider that so far, our global impact on the environment has largely been unintended,
resulting as a side effect of things we do for other purposes, like generating electricity, or
burning fuel for transportation, or growing crops for food. More and more, however, we are
intentionally modifying the face of the Earth: converting large tracts of land into urban
landscapes, building canals and dams and rerouting rivers, and so on. But still, while this is
intentional, these are largely uncoordinated efforts, serving local, often short-term purposes.
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Mark Lawrence: “Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene”
UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, 27 April 2015
This could take on an entirely different character given the discussions around so-called
“climate interventions”, also called “climate engineering” or “geoengineering” – ideas that have
been put forth for removing gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere in various ways, or for
increasing the reflection of sunlight back to space, in order to cool the planet in an attempt to
compensate some of the effects of global warming. Considering these ideas, the future world’s
society, or perhaps a coalition of nations, might try to take intentional, coordinated control of
the global climate, as well as other parts of the Earth system, such as global vegetation and the
hydrological cycle.
What would this mean for our understanding of ourselves, of what it means to be Human, in an
Anthropocene 2.0? What would this mean for the concept of Harmony with Nature, when it is
hard to even conceive of what Nature would be in the setting of an Anthropocene 2.0?
And, more generally, what kind of Anthropocene – or maybe Anthropocene 2.0 – are we
creating for the coming generations? Will it be a Human Anthropocene, one in which
individually egocentric and collectively anthropocentric desires continue to dominate our
behavior, showing our collective willingness to accept the suffering of fellow humans, as well as
countless other life forms, in order to feed our insatiable desires for more and more? Or will it
be a Humane Anthropocene, a compassionate and non-anthropocentric one in which we
someday succeed in ascending to our potential to create a truly just and peaceful world in which
Harmony with Nature is recognized as a part of our deepest Human Nature?
HARMONY WITH NATURE
Several of the speakers in the previous dialogues have pointed out that it is challenging to really
define Harmony with Nature, especially in the context of the Anthropocene. It is already a
challenge to define Harmony within Nature, without the influence of humans, and in the context
of the Anthropocene it can sometimes be difficult to even find Nature. But while academically
defining Harmony with Nature is difficult, it’s actually not all that that hard to feel it, for instance
when we are sitting quietly in an old growth forest, or next to a pristine mountain lake beneath
a clear blue sky. And in the context of the Anthropocene, we can still easily feel a sense of
Harmony with Nature in a beautiful garden, or amongst cherry blossoms in an orchard, or in
other environments which nevertheless have a strong human fingerprint.
And it’s certainly not all that difficult to feel when we are in Disharmony with Nature – we can
easily identify that when we see it, for instance, huge landfills and oil spills and animals packed
into small confines on factory-like farms. Examples of Disharmony with Nature are so many, and
so vast, and so longstanding, that we sometimes go numb to them, and it is hard to imagine
how we could ever turn this back around to someday living in Harmony with Nature.
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Mark Lawrence: “Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene”
UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, 27 April 2015
But those who know me know that I am an undying optimist, and so I’m going to tell you about
four reasons that I find encouraging, that do give me hope that we will someday turn the tides
on this situation.
First – many solutions are available, across the board, and these are not necessarily the kind of
solutions having to do with trying to take coordinated control of the global environment and
ushering in an Anthropocene 2.0.
Alternate solutions include renewable energy technologies, sustainable building practices,
sustainable agricultural practices, low-emissions forms of transport, and so on.
All of these exist, and all could principally be scaled up relatively quickly to global-scale
implementation. But this is not happening, and will not happen by itself.
So why not? What’s missing? There is no easy answer to this. Much still needs to be learned
about what drives and what hinders transformations of societies towards more sustainable
patterns of living. But we can pretty clearly say that in order to develop effective solutions for
the Anthropocene’s Grand Challenges, we will need to make use of ALL forms of knowledge that
are available, and not to assume that “science will provide the answer”. It will not. Science
might provide the answer to questions like “what different factors are controlling the year-toyear variability in temperature?”, but it cannot provide an answer alone to challenges like “what
can we do about the fact that people persist in doing things that are bad for their health, and
perhaps for others around them, even when they are fully aware of this and have good
alternatives available?”
Developing truly effective solutions to such challenges relies on accessing a broad range of
forms of knowledge, such as indigenous and investigative and political and empirical and
emotional and spiritual knowledge. One technique that is being developed to bring these
various forms of knowledge together is what we call “transdisciplinary research”.
Transdisciplinarity does not replace basic science, rather it adds to it, with science being a key
part of generating knowledge in transdisciplinary work.
And this brings me to the second reason that I am optimistic: there is a substantial movement
worldwide to integrate the many forms of knowledge, and not rely on science alone to provide
the answers. I have the fortune of being a director at an institute, the IASS, which has made it its
mission to be at the forefront of exploring and practicing this kind of inclusive problem-solving.
And there are many other research centers and universities that are beginning to explore this
form of transdisciplinary knowledge generation. Co-generation of knowledge has also been
noted several times in the previous Dialogues, especially in terms of including indigenous
knowledge as a part of the deeper understanding of our relationship with Mother Earth.
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Mark Lawrence: “Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene”
UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, 27 April 2015
The third reason that I am optimistic is that there is a slowly growing, broad sense in the world’s
wealthier societies, not only of the urgency of changing our ways, but also of the empowerment
to actually enact those changes, and to even increase one’s joy in life through doing so.
The reason for this urgency should be self-evident, given how we are stripping the Earth of its
resources and causing climate change and extensive environmental degradation. In a way, isn’t
this like collectively building up a huge debt by surrounding ourselves with material goods and
luxuries of all sorts that we can’t really afford, and then letting our children spend their lives
enslaved to paying off our debt? Would any of us do that to our children on an individual basis?
Recognizing this urgency, many are actively changing their ways on a personal level. Many cities
and nations are also beginning to change their ways, though still far too slowly to expect this to
bring about the transformations that would be needed to achieve sustainable development or
Harmony with Nature. Of course, it is an enormous challenge for a nation to cut its CO2
emissions in half, or to make other sweeping changes on a national scale; however, it is not all
that hard for an individual or a family to do this, and even more.
I can say this with firsthand knowledge, since my family has been making efforts in this
direction: we now eat mostly vegan, organic and regional food, we generally purchase Fair
Trade products whenever possible, we’ve cut our household plastic waste by over 80%, we
switched our electricity provider to one that draws completely from renewable energy, and so
on. But please don’t think we’re “perfect” in reducing our impact, or even hoping to be. We’re
just trying to see if there are ways that we can find as a family to lead healthier, happier, more
enjoyable lives, which at the same time reduce our negative impacts on our fellow humans and
on the environment.
And for me personally, as an institute director, my environmental impact through international
travel is of course problematic. A few years ago, when looking into CO2 compensations, I
realized that flying business class implies that you are responsible for 2-3x as much emissions as
when flying economy class, since an airplane full of business class seats would be able to carry
less than half as many passengers. So I decided to effectively cut my CO2 emissions by more
than half by switching from flying business class to now generally flying economy class. But even
though I’ve done that, and even though I try to reduce my emissions further by combining trips
wherever possible, my CO2 budget and other environmental impacts from my work-related
travel admittedly still troubles me.
Are my actions and those of my family really contributing directly to “saving the world”? No,
not really. Not even if 10 million, or 100 million people in the wealthier nations were to make
these kinds of personal efforts to reduce their environmental impact – it still wouldn’t be
enough to “save the world”. And then we’re already at the scale of nations, and we know how
difficult it is to make such transformations on a national scale.
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Mark Lawrence: “Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene”
UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, 27 April 2015
So, then, why do I, and many others, do these things? There are two main reasons. One is to
help me go beyond a dry, intellectual, scientific comprehension of the behavioral changes that
we talk and write about, to having direct experiential knowledge and a deeper sense of how it
will be for us to make these changes in our collective lifestyles. In doing so, it has quickly
become evident to me, in a different way than just reading about it, that a major challenge is
finding the discipline to carry through with these changes against the force of habit, and against
the forces of societal structures that often do not support these lifestyle changes.
The other reason for making the effort to “practice what we’re preaching” is to provide
inspiration to others around us, demonstrating to ourselves and others that although these
lifestyle changes may indeed sometimes be quite challenging, when you succeed then they are
directly rewarding, leading to a healthier relationship with one’s body and physical and social
environment, giving a personal sense of the Joy of Less, and, even amidst our busy world of
concrete, cars and computers, giving us an inkling of Harmony with Nature.
HARMONY WITH HUMANS IN NATURE
In thinking about Harmony with Nature, we usually first think about Harmony between Humans
and Nature. But considering that Humans are a part of Nature, especially being intertwined
with nature in the context of the Anthropocene, shouldn’t we also be thinking about Harmony
among Humans as a part of Harmony with Nature?
At the second Dialogue in 2012 I presented the idea of a “Cascade of Harmony”: how likely is it
that we can achieve Harmony with Nature, when we don’t even live in harmony between
societies, within societies, with our neighbors and colleagues, with our families and friends, and,
for the most part, we don’t even live in Harmony with ourselves? And doesn’t this cascade work
in the other direction as well – can an improved sense of Harmony with Nature be supportive in
developing more harmonious relationships among us as humans within Nature?
And this brings me to the fourth reason for optimism: these connections are being recognized in
many different ways, for instance, in the increased attention on mindfulness and happiness.
Mindfulness – which is essentially awareness combined with a sense of the here and now – can
be of great value in supporting Harmony with ourselves and others. An example of this is the
development of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction techniques over the last couple decades,
which are becoming more widespread and recognized in mainstream medical practice. There
are many ways to enhance mindfulness: through prayer and meditation, martial arts like Aikido,
walks in the woods, mountain climbing and even mindful gardening. Studies have shown that
mindfulness can help us to train and enhance kindness and compassion, which are of course
roots of Harmony amongst Humans. Mindfulness can also help us to avoid inattentively wasting
resources on things that we don’t really need or even really want, that we are just consuming
due to old habits and social structures. And through mindfulness, one generally develops a state
of greater inner peace, which in turn can lead to a deep sense of Joy and Happiness.
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Mark Lawrence: “Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene”
UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, 27 April 2015
Happiness has certainly gotten a lot of attention lately, with innumerable books and seminars
on the topic. And here’s an interesting connection I’ve noticed: at the International Day of
Happiness Event here last month, all three speakers – the musician Pharrell Williams and the
prominent scientists Sylvia Earle and Philippe Cousteau – talked not only about Happiness, but
also especially about climate change and global environmental preservation, two important
challenges in our quest for Harmony with Nature. This provides a nice example of the growing
recognition of the important role that Harmony with Nature can play in supporting the
fundamental goal of Happiness and Harmony amongst Humans.
And in turn, Happiness can move us towards greater Harmony among Humans, and also
towards greater Harmony with Nature. To be clear, the Happiness I’m talking about here is the
deep, spiritual form of Happiness, not the material form of Happiness that is connected with
getting and having. And to be clear, I’m not suggesting that just being happy with everything
around us will make all our problems go away. But cultivating mindfulness and deep happiness
can contribute significantly by supporting us in making the sweeping systemic changes that
would be needed to attain sustainable development and Harmony with Nature.
To quote from the book “More Brain, Please”, by Gerald Hüther, a German neurobiologist: “If
there are many people in a nation who don’t feel particularly comfortable [i.e., deeply happy] in
their private and work relations, and who only manage to endure this situation by temporarily
compensating their frustration through what they can purchase in shopping malls or the
internet or wherever else, then a great market forms...and…businesses relocate their
manufacturing to nations with cheap labor. And then the residents of the wealthy, developed
nations can endure their dysfunctional [i.e., deeply unhappy] relations with family, colleagues
and neighbors, through pursuit of their ‘replacement satisfactions’, at the cost of those in the
less wealthy developing countries.”
And this is of course also at the cost of the global environment, through vast environmental
degradation to extract and process resources and to dispose of their waste – in other words,
resulting in Disharmony with Nature.
So, turning this around, if the wealthy few could develop a better capacity to be happy with
being, rather than mainly with getting and having, wouldn’t we have less pressure on the less
wealthy peoples and the environment – in other words, a greater chance for someday achieving
Harmony among Humanity, and Harmony with Nature?
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Mark Lawrence: “Harmony with Nature and Harmony among Humans in the Anthropocene”
UN General Assembly Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, 27 April 2015
PUTTING IT TOGETHER: THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA CONTEXT
So, putting all of this together, there are three main points I’d like to suggest that you take into
consideration in your deliberations over the post-2015 Development Agenda:
1) Consider whether you want this Agenda to lead us towards a humane Anthropocene, or
towards an anthropocentric human Anthropocene, or perhaps towards an
Anthropocene 2.0. I cannot tell you which of these you should prefer. But I can tell you
that we are at a crossroads, and the post-2015 Agenda may be quite important in
determining which of these paths we follow…and in turn, our perspective on the
Anthropocene – how anthropocentrically we approach it – may have a substantial
impact on how likely we are to actually achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in
the Agenda.
2) Consider that ALL forms of knowledge are of great value, and how you can effectively
integrate these together in developing solutions for the Grand Challenges of the
Anthropocene.
3) Consider how Mindfulness, Happiness, and Harmony with Nature support each other,
and, in the context of the post-2015 Development Agenda, how these can be called
upon to support attaining sustainable development.
I would like to close with a quote from an ancient Chinese book of verse called the “Tao Te
Ching” (Stephen Mitchell translation):
A good traveller has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.
Let us all be good travellers, good artists, and good scientists in our collective quest for
Harmony with Humanity and for Harmony with Nature.
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